The Vatican Conspiracy: A completely gripping action thriller (A Marco Venetti Thriller Book 1)

by Hogenkamp, Peter

  It had all stopped, of course, as soon as the prince had had the good sense to bring Abayd on board, for a share of el-Rayad’s handsome weekly allowance. Forty-plus years later, he was still doing the same job, albeit for a considerably higher wage. The whole time he had relied on his instincts. They hadn’t failed him in forty years, and they weren’t failing him now: something smelled. Worse still, he had been unable to convince his boss there was a problem; the man was too obsessed with destroying the Vatican to listen to reason.

  Abayd crossed to the window as the sun dipped below the Gaisberg, the small mountain on Salzburg’s western flank. He hated it here, he realized, no matter how picturesque the old city was. For starters, security was a nightmare, especially with the prince out and about every day. But it was more than that; he hated everything about Austria. The wine was too sweet, the food too heavy, and the air too light.

  As this was to be their last Mozart Festival for some time—Abayd suspected forever—the prince was planning to paint the town red, because it would not be long before the Vatican Security Office and Europol concluded that Prince el-Rayad of Saudi Arabia had planned and financed the attempted assassination of the pope.

  Not very long at all.

  The Vatican possessed nearly unlimited financial resources and had allegiances in every corner of the world, particularly Europe. When the trail led the pursuers to the prince—and Abayd was sure, despite all Mohammed’s reassurances, that it would—they needed to be safely back in Riyadh.

  The shuffling of feet from behind him distracted his attention, and he turned to see Jibril entering his office. Jibril was Abayd’s first cousin and his most trusted aide. He was also a genius with computers and electronics, a talent that endeared him further to Abayd, who was not.

  “We need to talk.”

  Abayd nodded and led his cousin down the stairs into the back of the garage that lay beneath. There were currently four vehicles inside: a Lamborghini Murciélago, two black Mercedes sedans, and an armored Bentley limousine. They slipped out the back door, and walked along the edge of the cliff upon which the garage was perched. When they had gone fifty meters from the building, Abayd stopped in the middle of a grassy plateau and turned toward his cousin.

  “So, what do we have to talk about?”

  “Did you know there was a problem with KiKi’s phone?”

  “Yes, I’m the one who sent him to you. Why, is there a problem with it?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

  Jibril fished his Marlboro cigarettes out of his pants pocket, lit one, and consumed half of it in one long drag. “The prince was complaining he had no memory space. I immediately thought he’d used it up storing his porn collection, but it wasn’t that. There was plenty of space remaining, but his phone just couldn’t access it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought at first it was a glitch, but I plugged it in to my computer and ran a diagnostic.”

  “And?”

  Jibril blew a long stream of smoke. “The phone checked out.”

  “So what’s the problem? Virus?”

  “Something like that. The prince downloaded a program onto the hard drive.”

  “What kind of program?”

  “A very large one. Normally, a massive program like that would be obvious, but this one wasn’t. I wouldn’t have found it without some powerful software I recently acquired, and even then, I was lucky.”

  “What does this program do?”

  “That’s just it, cousin; I’m not sure. I’m working on it, but I didn’t want to wait to tell you.”

  “How much longer will it take?”

  “I don’t know. A few hours at best, maybe never.”

  “Never?”

  “Possibly. The whole program is encrypted. I can’t read a word of it.”

  “But you have software to get around encryption codes, Jibril; I authorized payment for it. You did buy it, didn’t you?”

  The prince had deep pockets, and it was not unheard of for his staff to reach inside them to line their own wallets. Abayd knew this well, because he was the worst offender, easily doubling his salary by embezzling money from the security budget.

  “Yes, I have the software, but it didn’t work.”

  “How could that be?”

  “I’m not sure. It would help if we asked KiKi. If we knew where he got the program, I might be able to think of a way to read it. Or I could tell him I found the problem and see if he wants to delete the program.”

  “How do you know KiKi downloaded it?”

  “Nobody else has access to the phone, except for you and me. I didn’t do it, and the possibility of a caveman like you doing it is zero. That leaves him.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would he download a program that hides from him? He already knows it’s there.”

  “Why don’t we ask him?”

  “No. Can you tell me the date and time it was installed?”

  “Probably, with some work. Why?”

  “I have a hunch, that’s why.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “No, and don’t mention a word of this to anyone other than me.”

  “You’re a secretive bastard, Abayd.”

  “That’s why I’m still alive, cousin.”

  Fourteen

  The Roman Catholic Church had acquired its fair share of enemies over the course of its two-thousand-year history, making the job of the Vatican Security Office an undertaking of some magnitude. The raison d’être of the office was to know the identity and divine the intent of every foe. It was a difficult task, and the improbability of doing it successfully kept Vincenzo Lucci up till all hours most nights. Although Cardinal Lucci was not part of the office, as Secretary of State he was in charge of the overall security of Vatican City, and he was not the kind of man to let others do his work.

  He lived in a spacious apartment in the Apostolic Palace, not far from the pontiff, an irony that was a mainstay of Curial gossip. In truth, he had been greatly disappointed by John Paul III’s election. The British bookmaker Paddy Power had listed Lucci himself as one of the favorites prior to the conclave; his odds had risen all the way to three to one a few days before the white smoke had drifted from the Sistine Chapel. After the election, he had almost considered turning down John Paul III’s request that he serve as Secretary of State, even though it was a job for which he was well suited.

  But in the end, he had come to be very happy managing the affairs of state for the world’s only religious oligarchy; or at least he had been happy until now. Now, he sat moodily behind the large mahogany desk in his study, silently seething about the catastrophe that had almost befallen the Church.

  On his watch, of all times.

  The appearance of Cardinal Scarletti, the Under Secretary of State, who had served for the last three papacies, gave him some relief from his self-inquisition. “He has arrived, Eminence.”

  “Send him in, Giuseppe.”

  The heavy oak door opened, and a lone man entered and sank into the brown leather armchair in front of the desk. He was well shy of average height and sat in a slumped posture, making him look even shorter. He was dressed in a gray suit and a striped necktie, and his face wore a dour expression, as if he was an attendee at the funeral of a poorly cherished family member.

  “Why so glum, Mr. Foster?”

  “It comes with the territory, Eminence.”

  Lucci didn’t doubt it; Foster was CIA.

  “Things could have been a lot worse, don’t you think?”

  “Wrong verb.”

  Lucci lifted a neatly trimmed eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “They should have been a lot worse.”

  “And yet they are not. Perhaps God isn’t dead quite yet.”

  “I don’t believe God had anything to do with it, and neither should you.”

  “You do realize I am a cardinal?”

  “N
o, you’re not; you’re the leader of the second most despised country in the world. And if you think God averted that attack, you’re going to sit on your hands and rely on him to stop the next one.”

  Foster got up and walked over to a dark cherry wood hutch, reaching inside to produce a bottle of Buffalo Trace bourbon and a pair of glasses. He set the glasses down on Lucci’s desk and filled them both.

  “No thanks.”

  He ignored Lucci and handed over the glass. “Trust me, you’re going to need it, and the next one will be stiffer.”

  “I take it the news isn’t good.”

  “That all depends upon your point of view. I’m sure you won’t be thrilled, but I can hardly contain myself.”

  Lucci swallowed his bourbon; his throat welcomed the scorch of the alcohol. “Why are you so excited?”

  “I kind of like Rome. It sure beats Prague, where they sent me last. At least you can get a decent meal from time to time.”

  “You’ll be staying, then?”

  “You’ve got enough enemies to keep me here until the end of my career.”

  “You don’t have to be so cheerful about it. Let’s hear it, Mr. Foster.”

  “Already? I haven’t even finished my first whiskey.”

  “Drink up, then.”

  Foster complied. “Have you ever heard of a Saudi prince named Kamal el-Rayad?”

  “No. Should I have?”

  “Maybe. He’s one of the richest men in the world—and consequently, one of the most dangerous. His ancestral lands sit on top of the largest known oil field.”

  “I do remember hearing something about him recently, now that you mention it.”

  Lucci reached into his desk and extracted two cigars from the box tucked away in the back. He knew he shouldn’t—his doctor frequently reminded him that the cigars exacerbated his heartburn—but he had a strong feeling he was going to get a severe case of indigestion anyway.

  “He was in the news a few months ago. He had gotten into trouble with the House of Saud, which isn’t surprising, because the House of Saud has hated the House of Rayad since the end of the nineteenth century.”

  “This history lesson has a point?”

  “Yes, and I’m getting to it. You got someplace to go?”

  Foster lit up his Maduro cigar and blew a thick stream of the honey-flavored smoke into the air, where it formed a cloud around the chandelier.

  “Al Saud ultimately defeated the Rayadi, who lost all their power by the 1920s.”

  “But not all their land?”

  “No, they retained a huge swath of land in Nagd, outside Riyadh. And they have been quietly pumping oil and making billions of American dollars by selling it exclusively to us. Everything was hunky-dory between the two houses for years, until just recently.”

  “What happened?”

  Foster shrugged. “Kamal el-Rayad happened. The treaty that ended the war between the two families specifically stated that although the Rayadi were to be allowed to keep the majority of their ancestral lands, they had to stop using their royal titles, a stipulation with which they happily complied for almost a century, until a few years ago, when Kamal el-Rayad starting calling himself an emir. The House of Saud ignored it for a while, which el-Rayad took as a sign that they didn’t have the will to oppose him on the issue.”

  “But they did oppose him?”

  Foster got up and started pacing back and forth, stopping every so often to take a sip of his whiskey and make sure he still had Lucci’s attention.

  “You bet your reverential ass they did, so hard that the CIA analysts in the Mideast section thought el-Rayad was going to lose all his land. But someone intervened, and the whole thing was swept under the rug. El-Rayad even got to keep using his title.” Foster punctuated this point by flicking the ash from his cigar in the general direction of the ashtray that Cardinal Scarletti had placed there in anticipation of his visit.

  “Who intervened?”

  “Don’t know. Somebody with very big balls, I can tell you that.”

  Foster sank back into the chair, as if the pacing had exhausted his capacity for exertion.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “We strongly suspect that el-Rayad is a major supporter of Islamic extremists.”

  “Suspect? Does that mean you don’t have any evidence?”

  “None whatsoever. But when has that ever stopped us?”

  Lucci got up and took his turn pacing, his black robe swishing behind him. “And you think this el-Rayad had something to do with the attack on the pope?”

  Foster nodded. His face remained unexpressive, and his small gray eyes betrayed nothing other than their irritation from the cigar smoke, which had grown heavy. “I’m pretty sure of it.”

  “And why would he want to do that?”

  “Because he’s pitching a tent for you guys that a herd of camels could hide under.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do, Eminence. But let me spell it out for you anyway. El-Rayad wants to level Vatican City and rollerblade through the rubble.”

  “Why?”

  Foster shrugged. “Next time he stops by, I’ll ask him. What difference does it make?”

  “I would like to know.”

  He laughed, sending droplets of saliva and whiskey high into the air. “Why? ’Cause you’re going to change his mind?”

  Lucci’s face reddened, matching his sash. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

  “There aren’t enough hours in the day to tell you about every wingnut that hates the Church. And until a few hours ago, that’s all we had him figured for.”

  “What happened a few hours ago?”

  “I had a visit from a friend of mine in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. El-Rayad can’t pick his nose without them knowing about it.”

  Foster stubbed out his Maduro and extracted a different cigar from his breast pocket. Lucci gave him a disapproving look, but the American ignored him and stuffed the cigar between his thin, bloodless lips, then lit up, filling the air with more smoke.

  “What did your friend in the directorate tell you?”

  “I was getting to that, Eminence. They have an informant in the prince’s network. They knew something was afoot, but they had no idea what. Until the day before yesterday, of course.”

  “They should have warned us.”

  Foster laughed, causing him to choke on a wisp of cigar smoke. “No, they shouldn’t have.”

  Lucci drained his glass. “Why not?”

  “If they blow the whistle and warn you, el-Rayad knows he has a leak, and the source is gone. Simple as that.”

  “So why say something now?”

  “I was getting to that. For starters, the attack has already happened, so there’s no worries about blowing the source. Secondly, and this is the bad news which I was referring to, we haven’t heard the last from the prince.”

  “No?”

  Lucci’s pacing stopped. He stood in front of a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, which was still cordoned off with yellow tape. A large company of Sampietrini, the men and women who were charged with maintaining Vatican City, had taken over the square, endeavoring to restore it to its former luster. With time, the tape would be removed, and the faithful would return to find that little had changed, other than the erection of a small stone memorial to the score of people—including four Swiss Guardsmen—who had died in the attack.

  Just another bloodbath in the two-thousand-year history of the Church.

  “The informant reported in again this morning.”

  Lucci rubbed his narrow forehead. He felt a headache coming on, which was scarcely surprising given his lack of sleep, alcohol intake, and the noxious smoke. “I can hardly wait.”

  Foster took a long puff of his rapidly shrinking cigar. “There’s going to be another attack.”

  Lucci refilled his glass and took another swallow of whiskey.

  “
However, there is some good news, Eminence.”

  “Yes?”

  “My friend … he wants to meet with you.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He didn’t say, but I suspect he’s going to offer to help you.”

  “There will be strings attached, I suspect?”

  “Is the pope Catholic?”

  “That is the same question I ask myself every day, Mr. Foster.” Lucci paused so that the CIA man could appreciate his cleverness. “Your president has spoken to me much about increased cooperation between the Vatican and the United States.” He stopped walking and faced Foster. “Can’t you make this problem go away for us?”

  “Allow me to give you a lesson on international politics. Let’s forget for a moment that Prince el-Rayad is from Saudi Arabia, our staunchest ally in the Mideast. Let’s assume we have incontrovertible proof that he funded the attempted assassination of the pope. We don’t, but let’s assume we do for the sake of argument. What are we going to do about it?”

  The throbbing in Lucci’s temples picked up; it felt like someone was stabbing his forehead with an ice pick.

  “Nothing, and I will tell you why. This prick supplies us with ten billion barrels of oil every year. If he even suspects we’re out to get him, he’ll turn off the spigot, the price of gas will go to six dollars a gallon, and we’ll have a national crisis on our hands. No administration is going to take that risk.”

  “What about the Italians?”

  Foster showed his teeth. “You’re killing me tonight. The Italians! The prime minister is so embroiled in controversy he can’t take a leak without consulting his lawyers. And you want them to take on a Saudi prince with more money than God and his own private army!”